1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to conveying systems and methods, and in particular to conveying systems and methods which are capable of identifying individual articles being conveyed along a primary conveyor and sorting selected articles for distribution along secondary conveyors extending in a direction lateral to the primary conveyor.
2. Description of Background Art
There are a wide variety of conveying techniques in the prior art. From time to time, it is necessary to re-orient articles moving along a conveyor. To that end, the prior art has devised a number of ways for effectuating the rotation of articles being moved along a conveyor. For example, in U.S. Pat. No. 3,128,868 to Bowen, there is disclosed a fixed turning device positioned along the conveyor and extending across only a portion of the conveyor, to engage a front corner of each conveyed article to thereby rotate the article and change its orientation relative to the direction of conveyance. U.S. Pat. No. 4,085,839 to Crawford likewise discloses a fixed plate located along the path of the conveyor, for laterally displacing the conveyed articles onto a second conveyor extending generally parallel with the first conveyor.
Carlson et al in U.S. Pat. No. 3,918,575 disclose a hydraulically-actuated arm useful in a pallet-loading system, for changing the orientation of each article prior to movement of the article onto a secondary conveyor extending laterally relative to the first conveyor.
Other prior art techniques for changing the direction of an article being conveyed are disclosed in U.S. Pat. Nos. 2,835,370 to Warrington; 2,649,187 to Eggleston; 3,104,755 to Zuercher; 1,729,671 to Bell-Irving et al; 3,093,236 to McLaughlin; and 4,711,357 to Langenbeck et al. It is also known to effectuate article movement from a primary conveyor to lateral sorting conveyors using a hydraulic ram located at each sorting station. However, those techniques cause a significant shock to the article, and thus create a risk of damage.
There is a need in the conveying art for permitting the rapid sorting of articles along a primary conveyor onto a plurality of adjacent sorting conveyors in a manner which permits the sorting conveyors to be displaced along the primary conveyor in a highly dense organization without damage to the conveyed articles. In that connection, it is also desirable to automatically identify each article as it passes along the primary conveyor for purposes of determining which sorting conveyor the article is to be directed.